Post history?

[jbourke]

Yes, I deleted some old messages. We do that regularly. Please do not use the forums to store information that you would like to keep.

The forum software becomes very slow if we don't clean up every few months.

Jim

[ChrisD]

Where are all the post/responses from earlier this year?

I brought up an old link that I wanted to read again, only to find it's unavailable.

Did you purge the history prior to April 2001?

There's a lot of good info there...........

[hoppy]

There are several threads which are hundreds of posts long, some dating back to 8/2000. Wouldn't deleting the "old" posts to these topics help the computer???
hoppy

[jbourke]

Originally posted by hoppy:
There are several threads which are hundreds of posts long, some dating back to 8/2000. Wouldn't deleting the "old" posts to these topics help the computer???
hoppy

Our software lacks this feature, but it certainly would make a difference.

Jim

[hoppy]

Maybe the "post originators" could delete the first post and start a new one in the interests of speeding up the ezone.
hoppy

Originally posted by jbourke:
Our software lacks this feature, but it certainly would make a difference.

Jim

[jbourke]

Originally posted by hoppy:
Maybe the "post originators" could delete the first post and start a new one in the interests of speeding up the ezone.
hoppy


They shouldn't delete it because that will lose all the replies immediately.

Instead they should just ask the moderator to close the thread and then start a new one to contain any follow-ups.

But this is not something the users need to worry about. We take care of purging when we need to and a few large threads isn't going to hurt us.

Jim

[radix2]

Sounds like your talking about deleting the "ask Larry" or "Cutie" type posts - my guess is if they got deleted a RIOT would start....

Actually, I was very surprised to learn that messages would be purged after a year or so. I'll need to be more careful in telling people to do a search of things that have been discussed to death, there is a good chance that the info has been deleted (it may only seem like yesterday).

Is there a way to archive particularly useful threads in a way that they will not be deleted ?... may be a simple way to create a living FAQ without all the editing/revising normally required.

Something like if a bunch of people think a thread is worth keeping, they post a message "let's archive" and teh moderator can move it to a secure (but searchable) area.

[Andy W]

I don't think the archive feature actually works..
..a

[steve lewin]

Originally posted by radix2:
Is there a way to archive particularly useful threads in a way that they will not be deleted ?... may be a simple way to create a living FAQ without all the editing/revising normally required.

Something like if a bunch of people think a thread is worth keeping, they post a message "let's archive" and teh moderator can move it to a secure (but searchable) area.

We're currently experimenting with some software which allows members to add Q&As to the FAQ. It's not really practical to keep all the pantomime "Can I ? No you can't, Yes you can, Well I never, are you sure ?" of the average thread http://www.ezonemag.com/disc/smile.gif But it would be valuable for someone to summarize a thread and post the *conclusions*. As several people can post answers to the same question if there are any dissenters they could have their say too though we probably don't want too much of that. The point of a FAQ is to give useful answers not to confuse people.

I've got most of the existing FAQ into the new style. If you'd like to have a look it's at http://www.ezonemag.com/faq/cache/1.html

Any comments welcome.

Steve
faq-maintainer@ezonemag.com

[radix2]

Originally posted by slewin:
. It's not really practical to keep all the pantomime "Can I ? No you can't, Yes you can, Well I never, are you sure ?" of the average thread http://www.ezonemag.com/disc/smile.gif But it would be valuable for someone to summarize a thread and post the *conclusions.

Steve, as a veteran of a variety of community service type jobs, I am very sympathetic to the ongoing work required to maintain a FAQ (thanks). What I would consider useful is just a simple searchable area for worthwhile threads that would take little or no effort to maintain. With the cost of disk space falling, I wonder how impractical it really is to just archive the give and take with the good info vs. expecting someone to go and seperate the wheat from the chaff?

I wonder how much memory is used to store the entire set of threads that are currently available?

Please don't take any of this as any sort of critisism - when someone wants to give me any advice on a volunteer job, I tell them to pitch in and help or ....

thanks

[ChrisD]

Folks,

I was dismayed to see posts as recent as April deleted.

There were several good threads on the Simple 400, for example, which explained mods, props, etc. We get new folks asking the same questions.

As spoken in the narration from the classic "The Christmas Story" they're "Gone, all gone. No turkey, no turkey soup, turkey fricasee, Ask Mike@ Hitec, my first post........"

[Foxtrot]

We definately need a way to archive old post. I now can't find anything. Looks like us newbie type people are going to have to keep asking the same questions over and over again.